Sean's Russia Blog

Kremlin to Fund Youth, Komsomolets Arrested

It seems that soon Vassily Yakemenko will no longer have to deny that Nashi gets its funding from the Kremlin.He has repeatedly stated that the now over $250 million that has gone to youth organization comes from “large, nationally oriented companies” and business men who want to “ingratiate themselves with the Kremlin.”A bill United Russia has introduced called “On the State’s Youth Policy” seeks to make legal what many suspect the Kremlin is already doing: funding pro-Kremlin youth groups that focus on rearing “youth in a patriotic environment” and prevents “extremism about young people”.In addition, the bill looks to focus on developing “potential cadres” in the area of youth politics.As Yabloko youth leader, Ilya Yashin, toldKommersant, “The state is giving a signal to youth: if you want to have a career, we will give you the possibility to join a youth organization or organize governments.In return, you must swear loyalty to the state.If not you will be called marginal and extremist.” Yashin also contends that this is a move on the Kremlin’s part to secure youths ahead of the Duma elections in December.Anyone familiar with the Komsomol will not be surprised.

Unfortunately for the RKSM, it doesn’t have the current government’s blessing.Kommersant is also reporting that on Monday one of the Komsomol’s leaders, Andrei Sokolov, was arrested for weapons possession.Police found Sokolov had 28 kilograms of explosives, 13 WWII rifles, two anti-tank mines and 5.6 mm revolvers and ammunition in his car.A search of his house and garage by the FSB didn’t turn up anything else.

This isn’t Sokolov’s first run in with the police.In 1999 he was sentenced to four years in prison for a bombing of a monument to the Romanovs.An upper court reduced his sentence to 2 ? years and two years of probation.He was arrested again in the summer of 2000 for possession of 60 cartridges of gun ammo and a revolver.When the police searched his apartment that time, they found explosive materials and instructions on bomb making.For that he was sentenced to five years in the slammer.He ended up serving only half his sentence.“Nothing was heard from him since his release,” Sokolov’s lawyer Dmitirii Agranovskii told Kommersant, “I know the atmosphere of leftwing youth very well and after his release, Andrei severed ties with them.I’m surprised that they found him with such a cache of explosives.The thing is after the terrorist attacks by Chechen fighters, leftwing youth gave up on violence as a method of struggle.”